Niels Corfitzen’s Haunting, Distorted Oil Portraits

Artist Niels Corfitzen toys with light and abstraction to create surreal portraits. The blemishes strewn across his works appear as both analog and digital distortion, offering both a vulnerability and mystery to the figures he depicts. Often, his work plays on both outdoors backdrops and flashes of culture.

The oil painter is based in Copenhagen but was raised in Sweden and lived in England for a number of years. Corfitzen works in several layers, allowing the image to find him through a gradual back-and-forth. Galleri Oxholm had this to say about the artist: “On the surface the paintings appear as small stills or scenes from a self-obsessed and ruined youth, who fight for the audience attention. A game with light and contrasts creates a concentrated presence and draw references back to the great masters such as Edward Hopper, PS Krøyer and Antonio Lopez Garcia.”

The work takes an interesting architectural turn in earlier works, playing less with abstraction and more with angles. Still, one of the artist’s greatest strengths carries through: Bold lighting decisions cast subjects as both exposed and alluring. All absorb in how the artist uses color and form to play with our expectations.